FLASHBACK: 12 times Toowoomba made headlines

Tara Miko
Reporter
Tara started with APN in 2010 after graduating with a journalism and politics degree from Griffith University in Brisbane. After two-and-a-half years working on APN papers in the Bowen Basin in Central Queensland, she joined the team at The Chronicle in February 2013. In September that year she took over the reins of the Rural Weekly.

The historic moment heralded new potential being untapped for the Darling Downs with a weekly direct freight route now firmly established taking produce and goods to the Asian trading powerhouse.

11. Triple murder horror

HISTORIC: Tyson Wilson, murdered May 31, 2005.Photo Contributed

ROCKHAMPTON psychopaths Scott Geoffrey Maygar and John Brian Woodman's horrific triple murder rampage 17 years ago remains not just a crime so heinous for Toowoomba but the entire state.

The pair, aged 18 and 16 respectively at the time, were responsible for the murders of 30-year-old Michael Thompson and teenagers David Lyons and Tyson Wilson, and the rape of a woman, 19, in a Hume St flat the night of May 30/31, 2005.

So heinous were their crimes considered by the court that Woodman became the first juvenile offender in Queensland's history to be publicly named.

A third teen, a street kid from Toowoomba that had been befriended by the two murderers, joined in the carnage which unfolded inside the Hume St home that night - the scene of unfathomable brutality and determination to kill a man who had offered a home for wayward kids and support for those in need.

Maygar and Woodman's motivation for the heinous attacks remain unclear but the chain of events have been a matter of public record since they were found guilty of the murders.

The pair's rampage started with a billiard ball inside a sock swung at Tyson's head while he slept on a mattress in the garage.

From there, Maygar and Woodman walked into the unit, each holding a metal pole and taking those inside the unit hostage before striking David over the head with the pole.

After raping a woman in the laundry, the pair cut Mr Thompson's heel but when he didn't die quickly enough, they tried to break his neck.

When that too failed, the pair bashed Mr Thompson so brutally he died of his injuries.

The third teenager, then aged 16, then took to Mr Thompson with a claw hammer in a move the murderer described as a way to ingratiate himself to the Rockhampton pair.

A piece of timber police found nearby is believed to be the murder weapon.

In what is one of Toowoomba's most chilling unsolved murder mysteries, Ms Mason's family continues to fight for justice and to finally get the answers as to what ended the smiling teen's life far too soon.